X L
:// INTRO
As of this writing, two big things have happened. First off, the site is now running version 5.0 (yes, as another server update fucked up my site) and second: I finally hit 40. Getting older is no big deal for me. I did notice that after 26 everything started to go downhill for me (that’s when I really started to feel those all-nighters and hangovers). I also noticed that in the past 5 years my habits did change drastically. I guess the best way to describe these habits would be “self-care” (?)
Now, I don’t mean as in the-engine is-running-but-there-is-no-one-behind-the-wheel type of deal.
What I mean is: socially, productivity and gaming.
:// THE SOCIALS
What I mean by social is that a few years back, I was always on the prowl for the next post. Or the next link I am going to share. Today, shit is different. So, one day a few years back, I managed to “beat” my socials. I was caught up on every feed. Hell, I even ran out of videos to watch on YouTube. That’s when you realize you have a problem. Especially considering I follow 113+ channels. All nerdy of course. I think this was around 2015, because that is when Twitter started to suck.
Before then, Twitter used to be a cool nerdy-tech-gaming space. But it slowly started degrading into politics and weird shit like that. Today, I have switched over to Mastodon. I still follow nerdy shit, but the good thing about ‘Masto is that not that many people are on it, so the feeds I follow probably only have about 5 – 10 updates since my last visit. Plus, about 90% of profiles I check have their own personal sites. This reminds me of the early 2000s when it was fun to follow someone’s URL.
I am also on the ‘gram, but here I interact with close friends. For some of my players, this has replaced texting all together. Here I also follow nerdy shit. For the past 2 years I have been getting very curious bout Dungeons and Dragons. I had no idea you could purchase (and make) your own terrains and layouts. In my day it was just a notebook and a calculator which reminded me of homework. Hence my hesitation to roll that D20 back then.
:// GAMING
I love gaming. It’s my dad’s fault. He made the mistake of buying me a Sega Genesis when I was 8 (or 7). Been hitting the sauce ever since. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like gaming in the I’m-drooling-cause-I’m-retarded kind of way. I enjoy gaming because of the tech and co-op aspects of it. I am only retro gaming now. With all my consoles modded, I can now play the games I missed out on during that specific console’s life span. My main console set up currently consists of a Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, (the original) Microsoft XBOX and the Sony PlayStation 2. I was lucky to get an OSSC to connect my consoles to my rig, so currently the sky is the limit. My current struggle is to curate which games are good for streaming (either as myself or under GOBLIN6) and which games are better to play on a handheld. The top 2 consoles which get major play are the PS2 and the XBOX. As I am hosting a fan-server on the PS2 I have almost maxed out that 40GB Final Fantasy 11 drive which I have in the console.
I did consider upgrading that drive but a modded PS2 has a cool feature. You can pull a directory from your network and play the games from there. Plus, there are some cool tools which will download the artwork so you can spice up your games list. The XBOX is where it’s really at though. Having finally added a 2TB drive means that I might probably not even manage to play everything I have on it. I have slowly started to curate and only add the best-of the-best onto that transparent clear green box. Plus being able to FTP into the thing is fucking killer. Not to forget that XBOX Live 1.0 is finally back online. I can finally play Phantasy Start Online without going broke.
(Only real players own the Dreamcast Broadband Adaptor)
The only “real” downside is that on my capture device the games don’t look as sharp and crisp as they do on the OSSC. After a few hours of research, turns out that a huge factor that affects quality is the TV itself. My HDTV in my game room is early 2010s which means that I can only scale to 2x. The OSSC can be upscaled to 5x.But I am not going to drop a dime on another TV.
Fuck that.
:// PRODUCTION
This one has been a big one.
Vintage Roberto would currently be working on 10+ different things while MAYBE finishing one of them.
Grizzled-ancient-Roberto stops to think first:
Is this fucking thing even worth it?
Again, 6 years ago this would have been an easy YES on everything. But after being burned and burnt out on various projects, I finally got it together (mostly). It’s easy for someone to read this and say, “shit isn’t that hard to do”.
To them, first I would say:
Fuck you.
Secondly, I would say:
Well show me something son.
As of this writing, all my completed projects are finally catalogued on the site. Thirty-one to be exact. In my many long years of sleepless nights and caffeine induced ragers I have met a lot of people that would always talk about their next-best-thing they are working on.
That’s cool.
But the issue is they haven’t finished a single thing. It’s like those 45+ year old ladies that hit the gym every day. Girl, please tell me this is your first day pumping iron and not your 2+ year anniversary. Cause if it’s not your first day at the gym then, damn. You need a refund baby (and a diet coke). Now my shit might not break the internet (ever), but everything listed here is complete. Either paid work or solo work. Everything is 100% bonafide complete. There are a few projects that keep bugging me. New projects of course, mostly shit-would be-cool-if type stuff.
For example:
The IRC. True connoisseurs of the web have gotten down and dirty with Internet Relay Chat at some point. The cool thing here is that an IRC chat looks like some sweet sexy terminal action. Plus, you can really flex your shit by customizing your IRC client. I would love to host my own IRC server for close friends. The issue is getting a decent IRC client for mobile as I’m sure that is where they would log in from. Plus, I could also set up some cool commands for them. It would also be cool to have a customized IRC web client just like Master Boot Record.
Here’s hoping someday.
A personalized 3D web viewer would be nice as well.
:// SUPER SIZE ME
Appropriately, the number 40 is also written as XL (just like my shirt size). In a way, that is the perfect symbolism for the workflow I would like to implement:
XL baby, go big or go home.
A permanent L-shirt size for me would also be nice.
First thing Monday.
ATTACHMENTS
. teamroberto v1 – lost to internet history